THE EDITOR, Sir:
I DO not normally read Richard Ho Lung's column but somehow I read his piece about understanding the tsunami and found it revolting.
Does Ho Lung, who I believe would be considered an intelligent man of sound mind, really believe that God in his wisdom killed 150,000 people, including many innocents, no doubt, leaving four million people homeless, orphaned children to suffer, simply because he wants to show us that "there is only one true God" and to silence "the ingenuity of man's plotting and planning for material progress and self-assertion."
Well, I must confess that as an atheist, condemned by Ho Lung along with the "abortionists", the "euthanasia proponents", and the "gay activists" that this holocaust sent by God, according to Ho Lung, will not frighten me to fear God or to believe in him.
It only strengthens my conviction that religious fundamentalists like Ho Lung are a cruel joke and totally irrelevant to the struggles of the world's poor and oppressed.
They have no appreciation of natural science or social science and are hell-bent on keeping their congregation in ignorance. In fact an ignorant congregation is the basis of their existence.
Instead of condemning the slow and still inadequate response of the developed world to the disaster in South-East Asia, not to mention what is happening in Africa and elsewhere, Ho Lung wants us to repent. Indeed, there couldn't be a better advocate for atheism than Father Richard Ho Lung.
I am, etc.,
LLOYD D'AGUILAR
lgdaguilar@yahoo.com
Kingston 8
Via Go-Jamaica
